High contrast imaging and thickness determination of graphene with in-column secondary electron microscopy

We report a new method for quantitative estimation of graphene layer thicknesses using high contrast imaging of graphene films on insulating substrates with a scanning electron microscope. By detecting the attenuation of secondary electrons emitted from the substrate with an in-column low-energy electron detector, we have achieved very high thickness-dependent contrast that allows quantitative estimation of thickness up to several graphene layers. The nanometer scale spatial resolution of the electron micrographs also allows a simple structural characterization scheme for graphene, which has been applied to identify faults, wrinkles, voids, and patches of multilayer growth in large-area chemical vapor deposited graphene. We have discussed the factors, such as differential surface charging and electron beam induced current, that affect the contrast of graphene images in detail.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Thermally Comfortable Affordable Housing: A Study on Residential Building Code In India

On an average, India has more than 3000 Cooling Degree Days (CDD). The multifamily public housing being constructed under India’s Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) is aimed at providing formal housing to the society’s Economic Weaker Section (EWS). It is essential that this housing delivers thermally comfortable in-doors to the occupants. This study mapped the design and construction practices followed under PMAY Urban (PMAY-U) against India’s Residential Energy Building Code, Eco Niwas Samhita (ENS). The metric prescribed in ENS is Residential Envelope Transmittance Value (RETV). For 80 PMAY-U projects, information related to spatial design, and walling assemblies was collated. 30 projects were short-listed for detailed analysis. The RETV for selected projects was calculated. The analysis demonstrated that walling assemblies and technologies having a lower thermal transmittance value (U-value) resulted in meeting the ENS prescribed RETV numbers, hence, code compliance. The study further extended to assess the energy performance of the housing unit by exploring the change in walling assemblies. The change in thermally comfortable hours were reported in the range of 4145 and 6034, and Energy Performance Index (EPI) of the dwelling units were reported between 64 and 68 kWh/m2/year for the various walling assemblies

Supervillin Binding to Myosin II and Synergism with Anillin Are Required for Cytokinesis

Cytokinesis, the process in which cytoplasm is apportioned between dividing daughter cells, requires coordination of myosin II function, membrane trafficking and central spindle organization. Most known regulators act during late cytokinesis; a few, including the myosin II-binding proteins anillin and supervillin, act earlier. Anillin\u27s role in scaffolding the membrane cortex with the central spindle is well established, but the mechanism of supervillin action is relatively uncharacterized. We show here that two regions within supervillin affect cell division: residues 831-1281, which bind central spindle proteins, and residues 1-170, which bind the myosin II heavy chain (MHC) and the long form of myosin light chain kinase (l-MLCK). MHC binding is required to rescue supervillin deficiency, and mutagenesis of this site creates a dominant-negative phenotype. Supervillin concentrates activated and total myosin II at the furrow, and simultaneous knockdown of supervillin and anillin additively increase cell division failure. Knockdown of either protein causes mislocalization of the other, and endogenous anillin increases upon supervillin knockdown. Proteomic identification of interaction partners recovered using a high-affinity GFP nanobody suggest that supervillin and anillin regulate the myosin II- and actin cortical cytoskeletons through separate pathways. We conclude that supervillin and anillin play complementary roles during vertebrate cytokinesis

Where are we in the search for an Artificial Visual Cortex for Embodied Intelligence?

We present the largest and most comprehensive empirical study of pre-trained visual representations (PVRs) or visual 'foundation models' for Embodied AI. First, we curate CortexBench, consisting of 17 different tasks spanning locomotion, navigation, dexterous, and mobile manipulation. Next, we systematically evaluate existing PVRs and find that none are universally dominant. To study the effect of pre-training data scale and diversity, we combine over 4,000 hours of egocentric videos from 7 different sources (over 5.6M images) and ImageNet to train different-sized vision transformers using Masked Auto-Encoding (MAE) on slices of this data. Contrary to inferences from prior work, we find that scaling dataset size and diversity does not improve performance universally (but does so on average). Our largest model, named VC-1, outperforms all prior PVRs on average but does not universally dominate either. Finally, we show that task or domain-specific adaptation of VC-1 leads to substantial gains, with VC-1 (adapted) achieving competitive or superior performance than the best known results on all of the benchmarks in CortexBench. These models required over 10,000 GPU-hours to train and can be found on our website for the benefit of the research community.Comment: Project website: https://eai-vc.github.i

Bronchiectasis in India:results from the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) and Respiratory Research Network of India Registry

BACKGROUND: Bronchiectasis is a common but neglected chronic lung disease. Most epidemiological data are limited to cohorts from Europe and the USA, with few data from low-income and middle-income countries. We therefore aimed to describe the characteristics, severity of disease, microbiology, and treatment of patients with bronchiectasis in India. METHODS: The Indian bronchiectasis registry is a multicentre, prospective, observational cohort study. Adult patients ( 6518 years) with CT-confirmed bronchiectasis were enrolled from 31 centres across India. Patients with bronchiectasis due to cystic fibrosis or traction bronchiectasis associated with another respiratory disorder were excluded. Data were collected at baseline (recruitment) with follow-up visits taking place once per year. Comprehensive clinical data were collected through the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration registry platform. Underlying aetiology of bronchiectasis, as well as treatment and risk factors for bronchiectasis were analysed in the Indian bronchiectasis registry. Comparisons of demographics were made with published European and US registries, and quality of care was benchmarked against the 2017 European Respiratory Society guidelines. FINDINGS: From June 1, 2015, to Sept 1, 2017, 2195 patients were enrolled. Marked differences were observed between India, Europe, and the USA. Patients in India were younger (median age 56 years [IQR 41-66] vs the European and US registries; p<0\ub70001]) and more likely to be men (1249 [56\ub79%] of 2195). Previous tuberculosis (780 [35\ub75%] of 2195) was the most frequent underlying cause of bronchiectasis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the most common organism in sputum culture (301 [13\ub77%]) in India. Risk factors for exacerbations included being of the male sex (adjusted incidence rate ratio 1\ub717, 95% CI 1\ub703-1\ub732; p=0\ub7015), P aeruginosa infection (1\ub729, 1\ub710-1\ub750; p=0\ub7001), a history of pulmonary tuberculosis (1\ub720, 1\ub707-1\ub734; p=0\ub7002), modified Medical Research Council Dyspnoea score (1\ub732, 1\ub725-1\ub739; p<0\ub70001), daily sputum production (1\ub716, 1\ub703-1\ub730; p=0\ub7013), and radiological severity of disease (1\ub703, 1\ub701-1\ub704; p<0\ub70001). Low adherence to guideline-recommended care was observed; only 388 patients were tested for allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis and 82 patients had been tested for immunoglobulins. INTERPRETATION: Patients with bronchiectasis in India have more severe disease and have distinct characteristics from those reported in other countries. This study provides a benchmark to improve quality of care for patients with bronchiectasis in India. FUNDING: EU/European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations Innovative Medicines Initiative inhaled Antibiotics in Bronchiectasis and Cystic Fibrosis Consortium, European Respiratory Society, and the British Lung Foundation

LOCAL TRENDS IN SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are all substances of abuse in Massachusetts. Comparing their state trends to those found in a local hospital in Worcester provided information to better prevent and treat addiction. The results indicate that in this city, drug programs should increase their focus towards adult males, particularly with information about cocaine and marijuana. Similarly, teenagers and young adults should have the most benefit from education about alcoholism with emphasis on drunk driving. Finally, tobacco treatments need to be more widely available, and specially targeted towards a younger population. Thus, although substance abuse is prevalent in Worcester, more efficient means to treat and prevent addiction are possible

Hyperhomocysteinemia – A Death Warrant in Young

Patient with atherosclerotic narrowing of blood vessels develop thrombotic occlusion and present clinically with cerebrovascular accidents, coronary artery disease, chronic kidney disease and peripheral vascular disease, with the main risk factors for atherosclerosis being diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, systemic hypertension, advanced age, male sex, obesity and smoking. But there are many other causes of arterial occlusion in the young, such as nonatherosclerotic angiopathies, thrombophilias, genetic disorders, inflammatory and infectious vasculitis. This is a case where thrombotic occlusion has occurred in the coronary and cerebral circulation in a young patient due to thrombophilia

PRODUCING AN ON-CALL-HELP DISPATCHER GUIDE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE COSTA RICA FIRE DEPARTMENT

As Costa Rica becomes subject to a highly dynamic emergency scene, Cuerpo de Bomberos, the country's fire department, is in a constant search for ways to improve its response services. This includes everything from improving firefighter training to updating technological devices. This report details our contribution to a digital on-call-help dispatcher guide to complement their efforts of improvement in the fire department. Our guide was created specifically for the dispatchers at the Office of Communications, Santo Domingo, the site of this project

Route-on-fly: a single cycle router

by Sneha N. Ved, Arjun Gour, Aparna Arya and Joycee Meki

Microscopic Mechanism of 1/f Noise in Graphene: Role of Energy Band Dispersion

A distinctive feature of single-layer graphene is the linearly dispersive energy bands, which in the case of multilayer graphene become parabolic. A simple electrical transport-based probe to differentiate between these two band structures will be immensely valuable, particularly when quantum Hall measurements are difficult, such as in chemically synthesized graphene nanoribbons. Here we show that the flicker noise, or the 1/f noise, in electrical resistance is a sensitive and robust probe to the band structure of graphene. At low temperatures, the dependence of noise magnitude on the carrier density was found to be opposite for the linear and parabolic bands. We explain our data with a comprehensive theoretical model that clarifies several puzzling issues concerning the microscopic origin of flicker noise in graphene field-effect transistors (GraFET)